Volks News 80

So far I'm only seeing scans of random pages that I guess people found interesting but thought I'd post this bit of information:

 

There is a DDP (f3) base body now, for 29,800 yen, along with replacement parts, and wrist joints with the extra joint like the DD3 ones. It looked like there is still only the single bust size. All available in NS and SW skin.

 

Also there is a MDD (f3) base body for 28,800 yen. There are also the double-jointed wrists for MDD. ALso NS and SW.

 

Given I only saw those two pages I don't know if there are now DD and DDS f3 base bodies.

Cover of the Volks magazine:

 

 

And a 2B sneak peek!

 

 

Courtesy of Vantoria.net

Can't wait for the new DDP bodies. My Marisa has that first gen DDS and Alsty has the first gen DY. Can't wait to get them replaced. Too bad that thigh gap is still there.

http://www.volks.co.jp/dress/1809/

September collection was just uploaded. Note that there are many other clothes besides these that release in October or so but I am waiting to see more complete scans before uploading them (or for someone to beat me to it)

 

Some other stuff:

1) ALL base bodies (except boys) will now come with f3 frames (not sure from when exactly yet, or if they will continue to sell the old bodies until stock runs out)

2) the new MDD wrist joints work for both MDDIII and MDDf3

3) the VIP item this issue is blank DDH12s (the flat mouth DDH01 variant), in a choice of NS or SW. it’s the first time it’s been offered outside Dream Choice. VolksUSA seems to get these VIP items -sometimes- (like certain limited hand parts) so I’ll be interested to know if they get this too.

 

Edit: what bellatrix is showing is sadly not the actual -front- cover, it’s a Vlockers girl, but it SHOULD be 2B >:T (she’s on the back, apparently. No fair )

Edit: what bellatrix is showing is sadly not the actual -front- cover, it’s a Vlockers girl, but it SHOULD be 2B >:T (she’s on the back, apparently. No fair )

Yes, she's on the back. Here are the relevant pages, fresh off the white box in front of me:

 

 

 

 

Here's the actual front cover:

 

Man it's been awhile since I've wanted so much out of a Volks News. The Day Camp outfits are so charming and for Volks to get fox tails out.. not to mention the really cute Autumn outfits.

 

I'll have to leaf through everything and really think on stuff cause almost every set of outfits has something I want..

1) ALL base bodies (except boys) will now come with f3 frames (not sure from when exactly yet, or if they will continue to sell the old bodies until stock runs out)

There's some kind of promotion from 10/20 - 11/11 on the new bodies. This scan isn't complete and my Japanese isn't very good so I won't embarass myself by posting my interpretation of what it says:

 

 

Anyway that suggests they're going to be available pretty soon. I don't like that they're going to be more expensive. It will be interesting to see what people think of them as people get their Sabers, but from comments on Yayoi and Iori it didn't seem to me like there was improvement to make them worth the extra cost.

This issue is a dangerous issue.

 

The fur-topped hiking boots look gorgeous.

 

 

The Day Camp Fur Quilt Vest set is going on my DDdy Yuria. With hat. Hat essential.

 

 

 

Going to pass on the miko outfits this time even though the short-skirted one is very nice and would look great on my Shinon, making up for the fact that the long-skirted miko outfit I already have has been stretched out by the aforementioned DDdy's thunderous mammarial assets...

 

No doubts about the single fox tail though. Never been much for multi-tails. I've got two hands so two tails is quite enough for me, whether two singles or a single double.

 

 

 

These knee-high boots are pretty tempting as well. I think I might have a boot problem.

 

 

1) ALL base bodies (except boys) will now come with f3 frames (not sure from when exactly yet, or if they will continue to sell the old bodies until stock runs out)

There's some kind of promotion from 10/20 - 11/11 on the new bodies. This scan isn't complete and my Japanese isn't very good so I won't embarass myself by posting my interpretation of what it says:

 

 

Anyway that suggests they're going to be available pretty soon. I don't like that they're going to be more expensive. It will be interesting to see what people think of them as people get their Sabers, but from comments on Yayoi and Iori it didn't seem to me like there was improvement to make them worth the extra cost.

That's correct. There'll be a discounted price of 28,000 (down from 31,800) for orders between Oct 10 and Nov 11, and they'll be shipped starting Dec 01.

 

Anyway that suggests they're going to be available pretty soon. I don't like that they're going to be more expensive. It will be interesting to see what people think of them as people get their Sabers, but from comments on Yayoi and Iori it didn't seem to me like there was improvement to make them worth the extra cost.

I would say they had some big improvements, but they lacked double jointed elbows, which meant you traded arm movement for overall body improvements.

 

With that said, this might have been a DDP limitation due to the smaller scale.

Yeah that's probably a size issue and the larger bodies will hopefully still have the double-jointed elbows.

 

It's not so much I doubt they improved things, it's more I'm happy enough with DDIII as it is, and far too often I find things that are improved in theory aren't improved for me, or I don't find extra value to justify the higher pricing. This hobby is already really expensive for me so when I see the bodies going up ~3000 yen (I think, the Volks News prices probably don't include tax unlike the website), I am not feeling what was changed is worth that to me.

 

I guess I also remember too well how easily early DDIIIs broke before Volks changed some things, so don't really trust that f3 isn't going to be the same early on.

 

It's pretty bad timing for me. I'm in need of two bodies for currently-floating heads. I was planning on getting one now and putting the other off but now I feel like I need to buy them both now; either DDIII before it goes away, or the new one while the discount is on. Since DDIII is a known thing for me I'd rather do the former than gamble on the new one.

 

 

The only things I'm seeing so far that I'm interested in are the tall boots (SB-SD16G-079), the swords, and perhaps the SDB Dark Owl dress.

Edited September 10, 2018 by Guest

Thanks for the scans and info everyone

 

Some super cute new items this month! I'm also excited that the DDP body will eventually be part of the base body line up.

 

It's not so much I doubt they improved things, it's more I'm happy enough with DDIII as it is, and far too often I find things that are improved in theory aren't improved for me, or I don't find extra value to justify the higher pricing. This hobby is already really expensive for me so when I see the bodies going up ~3000 yen (I think, the Volks News prices probably don't include tax unlike the website), I am not feeling what was changed is worth that to me.

 

To me the biggest improvements are the way the shoulders fit into the torso, and the lines of the hips. They make the body look more natural, and less doll like. You also have the swivel hands and feet, which is nice for poses with widely spaced feet, and the swivel hands are a lot nicer than getting the entire hand peg to twist. The big drawback to them is I would bet you have issues with holding stuff in some poses.

Edited September 10, 2018 by Guest

It's not so much I doubt they improved things, it's more I'm happy enough with DDIII as it is, and far too often I find things that are improved in theory aren't improved for me, or I don't find extra value to justify the higher pricing. This hobby is already really expensive for me so when I see the bodies going up ~3000 yen (I think, the Volks News prices probably don't include tax unlike the website), I am not feeling what was changed is worth that to me.

To me the biggest improvements are the way the shoulders fit into the torso, and the lines of the hips. They make the body look more natural, and less doll like.

This must not really come across in pictures; I'd read this comment from you before and I tried to see it and haven't been able to.

 

I know Volks makes a big deal about the extra frame flexibility like making one shoulder lower or doing that with the hips; however, they just show the frame and I am fairly sure the vinyl skin really limits the ability to do that.

 

You also have the swivel hands and feet, which is nice for poses with widely spaced feet, and the swivel hands ar lot nicer than getting the entire hand peg to twist. The big drawback to them is I would bet you have issues with holding stuff in some poses.

For better or worse I already have the swivel hands. I have bought extra wrist joints so I don't have to heat and remove hands to change them, just pull out the wrist joint. The only joints Volks sells now are those swivel ones. When you buy a body or the arms, you get the regular ones but when you buy wrists you get the swivel ones.

 

And yes, it makes it hard to hold anything. Foo showed that here when he tried to have a doll hold an umbrella and it kept falling down.

 

This is an example of a supposed improvement I don't like. I don't like the swivel wrist joints. I don't think the swivel is very useful, and while human wrists do bend like that, they don't bend very far. And for myself, maybe it's CTS/arthritis/old age, but if I try to bend my wrists like that, it hurts, a lot. And it looks funny, like something is broken so I don't think it's generally very useful with doll posing.

 

Anyway, this is probably in "old man yelling at cloud" territory, but the bottom line is the body price is increasing about 10% to do this.

 

Also, I've been trying to read that badly-scanned page better about the 3800 yen discount for the limited time. As far as I can tell, in order to get that, you have to trade in an old body. Yeah, Volks will give you 3800 yen for a DDIII body in trade on a DD-f3. That sounds like a very poor deal to me. If I've read the info wrong someone will correct me soon but I believe that's how it works. This is for Volks Japan of course, so whether Volks USA does something similar remains to be seen. No one is going to send a body to Volks Japan from the US where it would cost more than that 3800 yen to ship it.

 

The tweet with those scans is here:

So how do those ears and tails get held in place? There are a couple outfits I want, but sadly no funds in my DD account.

There's some kind of promotion from 10/20 - 11/11 on the new bodies. This scan isn't complete and my Japanese isn't very good so I won't embarass myself by posting my interpretation of what it says:

 

I wish the photo were more complete, but from what is visible the deal seems to be thus:

 

Bring in a used DDI, DDII, or DDIII body, and trade it in for a 3800 yen credit towards the price of a new DD-f3. That makes your cost 28K yen for the f3 rather than 31.8K yen. Trades accepted 10/20-11/11, and your new DD-f3 will ship out starting 12/1. Note that only NS and SWS are accepted; anything else - to include white skin, tan skin, MDD, DDS, DDP, or heads - does not count.

 

If there's nothing to it elsewhere on the page that was missed in the photo, then it seems like a poor deal to me because bodies usually sell for much more than 3800 yen secondhand, even to a recycle shop like Mandarake. So I'm not quite sure who the target audience for this deal might be.

There's some kind of promotion from 10/20 - 11/11 on the new bodies. This scan isn't complete and my Japanese isn't very good so I won't embarass myself by posting my interpretation of what it says:

 

I wish the photo were more complete, but from what is visible the deal seems to be thus:

 

Bring in a used DDI, DDII, or DDIII body, and trade it in for a 3800 yen credit towards the price of a new DD-f3. That makes your cost 28K yen for the f3 rather than 31.8K yen. Trades accepted 10/20-11/11, and your new DD-f3 will ship out starting 12/1. Note that only NS and SWS are accepted; anything else - to include white skin, tan skin, MDD, DDS, DDP, or heads - does not count.

 

If there's nothing to it elsewhere on the page that was missed in the photo, then it seems like a poor deal to me because bodies usually sell for much more than 3800 yen secondhand, even to a recycle shop like Mandarake. So I'm not quite sure who the target audience for this deal might be.

 

Geez, when did Volks take notes from the Gamestop playbook? Yeah, I'm sort of confused about who this deal is for too...would make more sense to just sell bodies to Mandarake. Especially with all those limitations. That's even more odd why they wouldn't take MDD or DDS. I wonder why.

@SakuraSylph thank you so much.

 

That's what I thought it was saying but my Japanese is poor and with the addition of trying to fill in the blanks since part of it is cut off I wasn't sure at all. Especially because, as you say, it seems like a really poor deal.

 

Besides them not taking it in trade, I see no mention of any of the new stuff coming in white skin. Is that being completely discontinued now? I know Volks hasn't made a new doll in WS in I don't know how long, but Santa Saber Alter was still white skin rather than being changed and that wasn't so long ago.

 

 

I think that I'm going to try to rush to get the existing bodies for the two I need. I'd rather not spend more especially when I don't know if I'll appreciate or even like the changes, and I know what I'm getting and what to expect from them. I know @Yenna wasn't too happy with how the f3 joints snap together (or don't) which I think she discussed here on the forum and it's on her blog:

 

http://www.dimensiondolls.com/blog/archives/2887

 

That's one person's opinion but I find her to be quite insightful in general.

 

I don't think it will be difficult to continue to get DDIII parts from Volks for hopefully a long time, since the DD2 stuff is generally still available, at least from Volks Japan.

 

Edit: Here's another pair of page scans showing the DDS-f3 stuff:

 

 

So I can see from there the price is 31,800 yen, tax excluded. Volks Japan webstore prices include the tax, and the current bodies are 30,240 yen, so that would be 28,000 yen without tax. So the new bodies are 3,800 yen more expensive than the old, and that also must be where Volks came up with the discount amount from trading in an old body. You give them an old body and buy a new one at the price of the old ones. Doesn't make it any better of a deal though. So anyway that's about a 13.5% increase in pricing for the new bodies.

 

Looking at individual parts, the bust prices haven't changed so it's only because of the internal frame as expected. The arms also haven't changed price but everything else has increased.

This must not really come across in pictures; I'd read this comment from you before and I tried to see it and haven't been able to.

 

I've circled the parts I am talking about and Yayoi is shown for comparison.

 

 

The arms and legs on the DDS body seem to come out of the torso in an unnatural way. The little gaps at the top of Yayoi's sounders can completely disappear with a bit of adjustment. You'll have to zoom in to see the hips. I reused the images and the panties Makoto is wearing aren't the best to show this. Yayoi hips form a nearly smooth curve where Makoto's have an odd indentation. In both cases the DDS arms and legs look more like tubes coming out of the torso, and Yayoi's seem more natural to me.

 

Of course as of now we don't know what the DDS-F3 or DD-F3 are going to look like yet. It may be that these changes are associated with the DDP body, and the DD/DDS may reuse the vinyl parts from the original bodies. I can think of a few people who won't be happy if the busts aren't interchangeable between the two bodies.

 

If the DDS-F3 body is as nice as the DDP's though I may steal Altria's body for Makoto. I tend to use her in photo's more than any of the others. I said once before that my priority would be replacing my DDII's but that has a lot to do with loose joints, and the general inflexibility of certain parts of the body. I'll get more out of them with an upgrade, but I also won't spend anything until we see what kinks the new larger bodies have.

I would say they had some big improvements, but they lacked double jointed elbows, which meant you traded arm movement for overall body improvements.

 

With that said, this might have been a DDP limitation due to the smaller scale.

 

DDP definitely has double-jointed elbows- you just have to pull pretty firmly to get the 'peanut' joint out of the upper arm vinyl. Same design as MDD III, just bigger and with a metal pin for reinforcement on the upper joint.

I would say they had some big improvements, but they lacked double jointed elbows, which meant you traded arm movement for overall body improvements.

 

With that said, this might have been a DDP limitation due to the smaller scale.

 

DDP definitely has double-jointed elbows- you just have to pull pretty firmly to get the 'peanut' joint out of the upper arm vinyl. Same design as MDD III, just bigger and with a metal pin for reinforcement on the upper joint.

 

O.o

 

Ok, since I have my Yayoi out, I am definitely going to mess about with that.

 

"Yayoi, off with your clothes it's time for some experimentation."

Re:the reports of dolls having legs and arms fall off frequently on the f3... that actually happens all the time with Mel’s arms (DDSB) and Luka’s leg (DDIII). But I’ve never had issue with Rin, so I just assumed it was a case by case thing.

When I was hanging around with IeAster in Tokyo earlier this year, Mei (DDP) had her leg come off and we could NOT get it back on - luckily we were in Akiba at the time and ended up going to DollPoint and asking them to help us get it back on. Since then I’ve been a little nervous about f3... however I am not sure how easy/difficult it actually was to get on, because I was reluctant to attempt it myself as I didn’t want to manhandle/risk hurting someone else’s doll and IeAster also presumably wasn’t to used to the DDP at that point in time as Mei had previously had an obi50 body until shortly before the Japan trip.

 

So I’m very eager to see some indepth posts about Saber’s body when she’s out.

Eyup, the peanuts were there, and I think the mobility of the arms is at least equal to the DD body. It never occurred to me to pull them out. XD

 

When I was hanging around with IeAster in Tokyo earlier this year, Mei (DDP) had her leg come off and we could NOT get it back on - luckily we were in Akiba at the time and ended up going to DollPoint and asking them to help us get it back on.

 

My Iori definitely had some issues with bits falling off, but the fix was just pushing the part in until I heard a click. As soon as I did that I had no issues, and I've spent some time messing around with posing them just to see what I could do.

 

Facepalm on the double jointed arms though...

 

So I’m very eager to see some indepth posts about Saber’s body when she’s out.

 

Same, I'm unlikely to be in the first group of recipients, so I am looking forward to what others have to say about them. I'm hoping Volks news 80 has some photo's once all the scans are in.

@Torino: On the existing bodies, since everything is friction-fit, manufacturing tolerances, shrinkage, etc. is likely why you end up with some dolls with limbs that fall off and some that are too tight. With f3 as you can see in the pictures of the wrist parts, they added those "friction rings" on the pins of parts, and from what I've read there's a corresponding notch in the sockets for them to lock into. It's a reasonable idea but if tolerances are still off then things can be worse, since that small area is the only part that is likely to be tight, by design. Or at least this is what I understand; I don't have a DDP (yet lol) so I don't have actual experience with f3. DD3 didn't change the joint design much over DD2 and yet the early DD3 had all the problems with cracking and breakage, so I'm paranoid and also think about that happening again with early f3.

 

@Wolf: I see what you mean though I feel personally it's pretty minor, and the hip part is hidden by most clothing. Also for the hips I wonder how much is to do with the frame and how much is the body shape; DDP has far smaller thighs compared to DDS or DD I see.

 

I just noticed something. Here's the page of DDS body parts again:

 

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DmuxIheUUAA8hR7.jpg:large

 

I suspect the busts are the same parts as before. Notice that all of them except the L flat type come in white as well as the other colors, unlike any other part for the f3 body. They also don't say "f3" in their name like the rest of the parts, though that could be just because they don't include any frame part. Alternately, perhaps they're new but they replace the others and are compatible with the old bodies, but I think the other is more likely. Since that doesn't show part numbers we can't know for sure.

 

Anyway, if that's the case, the shoulders aren't going to look much different. DDP I know has the molded cup in the bust to support the ball-shaped part of the arm, and I am assuming the lip at the edge is thinner to give the look in your picture. Without the DDS and DD busts being any different that's not going to be the case.

 

I just noticed something. Here's the page of DDS body parts again:

 

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DmuxIheUUAA8hR7.jpg:large

 

I suspect the busts are the same parts as before.

 

Thank you, I missed that when it was posted. I agree the busts are likely unchanged, but the shoulder on the arm is a ball. That may make a lot of difference. On the DDIII frame is basically an L bend.

 

I think they were kind of stuck with the busts, along with hands they would be hard to make F3 version specific without gimping the sales of the new body.

 

I suspect the unitorso may be a thing of the past with the new body, or it may be released with a simpler inner frame lacking the complex spine. Then again it might be more expensive to run two production lines for a frame, so we'll see.

 

I often have them in swimsuits, or babydolls so the lines are more visible to me.

Yayoi, off with your clothes it's time for some experimentation.

 

(Image stolen from Danny Choo and then butchered by me.)

 

For Nier Automata 2B, I'd like for her to include TWO heads. One unmasked, and one with the blindfold on because that's guaranteed to be a stain nightmare. While I'm at it, I'm going to ask for a unicorn which poops rainbows.

 

The SB-SD16G-079 boots look awesome. Now I need to not turn into Imelda Marcos.

 

The DD to f3 trade-in offer is a raw deal to those of us who post here. GameStop customers are screaming how awesome the deal is.

 

Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week. *bows*

 

On a serious note, has anyone seen a scan of the Dollfie Calendar in issue 80? I'd like to know what we can expect in terms of upcoming events.

 

Grrrr. Volks USA won't stock issue 80 for a while. 79 hasn't been released yet!